Charles  J.  Stille 


Christ  Church,  Phila-cJ.elT^hia, 
and  the  Province  of 
Pennsylvania. 


^'iOGlCALSt*^^^ 


"By  5^20 

^8 


Christ  Church,  Philadelphia, 


AND   THE 


PROVINCE  OF  PENNSYLVANIA. 


BY 


CHARLES   J.    STILLE,    LL-D. 


St---,'    - 


THE 


HISTORICAL  RELATIONS 


OF 

Christ  Church,  Philadelphia, 


WITH    THE 


PROVINCE  OF  PENNSYLVANIA. 


AN  ADDRESS  DELIVERED  AT  THE  TWO  HUNDREDTH 

ANNIVERSARY   OF   CHRIST   CHURCH, 

NOVEMBER    19,    1895, 

BY 

CHARLES   J.  STILLE,  LL.D. 


PHILADELPHIA: 
PRESS  OF  P.  C.  STOCKHAUSEN,  55  N.  7TH  ST. 

1895. 


CHRIST  CHURCH,  PHILADELPHIA, 

AND    THE 

PROVINCE  OF  PENNSYLVANIA. 


/^l^HE  history  of  the  indirect  influence  of  Christ  Church 
1^^  upon  the  lay  element  in  Pennsylvania,  in  the  pro- 
vincial era,  is  not  as  interesting  nor  as  attractive 
a  topic  as  the  ecclesiastical  history  proper  of  the  Church. 
The  most  conspicuous  examples  of  such  influence  are  to 
be  found  in  the  repeated  but  unsuccessful  efforts  made  by 
members  of  this  congregation  to  persuade  the  King  to  sub- 
vert the  Proprietary  government,  the  administration  and 
policy  of  which  they  alleged  tended  to  destroy  the  exercise 
of  their  rights  and  privileges,  civil  and  religious,  as  free- 
born  Englishmen.  On  four  different  occasions  at  least  in 
seventy  years,  its  members  were  the  leaders  of  such  a 
movement,  and  I  propose  in  treating  of  the  topic  which 
has  been  assigned  to  me  to  explain  why  they  adopted 
such  revolutionary  measures  to  destroy  the  government 
under  which  they  lived. 

The  lay  element  in  Philadelphia  society  in  provincial 
days  belonging  to  the  dominant  religious  sect,  may  be  said 
to  have  been  for  many  years  unfriendly  to  the  doctrine  and 
discipline  of  the  Church  of  England,  and  it  watched  the 
growth  in  strength  and  power  of  Christ  Church  with  suspi- 
cion and  jealousy.  From  the  beginning  there  were  two 
parties  here :  the  Church  party  and  the  Quaker  party. 
The  former  contended  that  its  opponent  had  usurped  power 
not  granted  by  the  Charter  of  the  Province,  to  the  mani- 


fest  injury  of  the  civil  and  religious  rights  of  other  free- 
born  Englishmen.  Strange  to  say,  Christ  Church  although 
flourishing  for  more  than  seventy  years  in  a  peaceful  com- 
munity, with  absolute  freedom  of  worship,  the  right  to 
which  had  never  even  been  questioned  by  the  Quaker 
rulers  of  the  Province  nor  by  anyone  else,  was  in  a  very 
important  sense  a  Church  Militant.  Indeed,  I  do  not  think 
it  is  going  too  far  to  say  that  in  no  American  Colony  were 
the  Church  and  those  who  dissented  from  it  during  many 
years  placed  in  more  open  and  violent  antagonism.  The 
Quakers  formed  for  a  long  time  the  dominant  party  in  the 
Province,  and  Churchmen  alleged  that  it  exercised  at  times 
its  power  in  such  a  way  as  to  conflict  with  the  traditional 
religious  beliefs  and  practices  of  the  members  of  the 
Established  Church.  The  latter,  feeble  in  number,  con- 
stantly resorted  to  the  Imperial  power  in  England  to  main- 
tain what  they  claimed  to  be  their  civil  and  their  religious 
rights  and  privileges.  They  petitioned  the  King  to  force 
the  Quaker  magistrates  to  take  such  oaths  of  office  as  were 
customary  and  obligatory  in  England,  and  to  which  alone 
they  attributed  any  binding  legal  force  here.  They  asked 
that  the  juries  and  witnesses  in  the  courts  should  come 
under  the  same  formal  obligation,  that  the  right  of  petition, 
which  they  alleged  the  Quakers  had  set  at  naught,  should 
be  maintained  as  sacred,  and  that  they  should  be  forced  to 
place  the  Province  in  a  state  of  defence  against  the  pirates 
and  Indians,  by  whose  incursions  they  were  threatened. 
Feeling  that  there  was  little  prospect  of  compelling  the 
Quakers  to  adopt  any  such  measures  of  legislation  in  the 
Provincial  Assembly  as  the  emergency  required,  they 
earnestly  urged  the  King  to  dispossess  the  Proprietor,  to 
dissolve  the  existing  government,  and  to  govern  Pennsyl- 
vania henceforth  as  a  Royal  Province, 


There  is  a  popular  opinion  that  the  Provincial  Regime 
in  Pennsylvania  was  marked  not  only  by  religious  tolera- 
tion, but  by  absolute  religious  freedom ;  that  there  was, 
during  this  provincial  era,  a  kind  of  idyllic  tranquility  and 
harmony  here,  resulting  from  non-interference  with  the 
religious  rights  and  opinions  of  those  who  did  not  agree 
with  the  ruling  party.  Those  who  hold  such  opinions  for- 
get that  although  William  Penn,  our  founder,  was  the  most 
enlightened  political  philosopher  of  his  time,  and  one  of 
the  earliest  advocates,  since  the  days  of  the  Emperor  Con- 
stantine,  of  absolute  religious  freedom,  none  of  his  succes- 
sors in  office  held  the  same  opinions  as  he.  There  was  not 
a  Quaker  among  them.  They  and  their  Deputy  Governors 
during  the  whole  Provincial  Regime  were  strong  adherents 
of  the  English  Church,  as  by  law  established,  and  in  an 
important  sense  special  patrons  of  Christ  Church.  Their 
notion  of  other  people's  religious  rights  did  not  extend 
beyond  the  protection  vouchsafed  to  Dissenters  by  the 
English  Toleration  Act  (so  called)  of  1689.  They  held 
that  the  Quakers  had  no  special  power  in  this  Province  to 
enlarge  the  indulgence  granted  by  that  Act.  The  history, 
therefore,  of  the  comparatively  small  body  of  Episcopalians 
here,  or  of  the  members  of  Christ  Church  (for  I  use  in  this 
paper  the  terms  as  equivalent),  is  a  history  of  strife  for 
objects  which  we  may  now  think  trivial,  but  which  both 
parties,  two  hundred  years  ago,  looked  upon  as  fundamental. 
It  is,  of  course,  not  pleasant  to  recall  the  history  of  more 
than  seventy  years  of  religious  discords  but  I  trust  that  we 
are  now  far  enough  away  from  the  battle-field  to  describe 
its  scenes  with  impartiality  and  truth.  If  I  am  forced  to 
"  rake  up  the  ashes  of  our  fathers,"  1  trust  that  it  will  not  be 
necessary  to  disturb  them  further  than  to  throw  light  upon 
the  scenes  in  which  they  were  such  conspicuous  actors. 


6 

By  the  "  great  law  "  adopted  by  the  freemen  at  Upland 
in  December,  1682,  it  was  provided  that  "no  person  now 
or  hereafter  living  in  the  Province,  who  shall  confess  one 
Almighty  God  to  be  the  Creator,  Upholder  and  Ruler  of 
the  world,  and  professeth  himself  or  herself  obliged  in  con- 
science to  live  peaceably  and  justly  under  civil  government, 
shall  in  any  wise  be  molested  or  prejudiced  for  his  or  her 
conscientious  persuasion  and  practices  ;  nor  shall  be  obliged 
at  any  time  to  frequent  or  maintain  any  religious  worship, 
place  or  ministry,  contrary  to  his  mind,  but  shall  fully  and 
freely  enjoy  his  or  her  liberty  in  that  respect  without  any 
interruption  or  molestation."  This  provision,  it  will  be 
observed,  establishes  religious  toleration,  not  liberty. 

Before  the  Charter  was  granted  by  the  King,  it  was  sub- 
mitted to  the  Bishop  of  London  and  an  amendment  was 
made  to  it,  at  his  instance,  providing  that  that  Bishop 
should  have  power  to  appoint  a  chaplain  for  the  service  of 
any  congregation,  consisting  of  not  less  than  twenty  persons, 
who  might  desire  such  a  minister.  Out  of  the  different 
interpretation  which  was  placed  by  the  Quakers  and  by  the 
Church  people  on  this  innocent  looking  provision,  arose  all 
the  bitterness  of  the  controversy  which  characterised  the 
relations  of  these  religious  bodies  during  the  Provincial 
era.  There  never  was,  it  seems  to  me,  a  religious  dispute 
in  which  each  side  was  more  sincere  in  maintaining  oppo- 
site views.  The  Quakers  insisted  that  the  principal  object 
which  Penn  had  in  view  in  founding  the  Colony,  was  to 
secure  a  place  of  refuge  and  safety  for  those  of  his  followers 
who  were  exposed  to  persecution  in  England,  and  where 
they  might  with  absolute  freedom  maintain  their  creed  and 
practice  their  profession  ;  that  all  acts  of  the  government 
should  be  subordinated  to  carrying  out  such  a  scheme, 
called  by  its  leader  "  the  Holy  Experiment,"  and  that  any 


act  of  Governmeut,  Imperial  or  Provincial,  wliicli  inter- 
preted the  Charter  in  any  other  way,  was  repugnant  to  its 
spirit  if  not  to  its  letter. 

The  conditions  imposed  by  law  on  the  power  of  the 
Legislative  Assembly,  and  to  which  they  all  heartily  agreed, 
were  that  they  should  not  deny  liberty  of  worship  to  those 
who  differed  from  them  and  should  not  deny  to  any  one  the 
rights  of  Englishmen.  The  Quakers  had,  of  course,  the 
entire  control  of  the  legislative  body,  and  they  practically 
determined  how  far  the  privilege  granted  b}^  the  Charter 
extended.  In  their  early  legislation  here  they  made  what 
turned  out  to  be  (as  Penn  had  tried  in  vain  to  convince 
them)  a  serious  mistake,  and  that  was  by  sometimes  acting 
as  if  this  was  a  Quaker  colony  exclusively,  possessed  of 
certain  privileges  to  which,  as  refugees  and  as  Quakers, 
they  considered  themselves  entitled,  and  to  which  all  the 
inhabitants  must  conform  ;  and  not,  as  it  really  was,  in  law 
and  in  intention,  a  colony  of  free-born  Englishmen,  all  of 
whom  were  entitled  to  the  privileges  granted  by  the  Charter, 
as  well  as  those  common  law  rights  of  Englishmen  which 
they  had  not  forfeited  by  crossing  the  sea,  whether  they 
belonged  to  the  Society  of  Friends  or  not.  In  those  days 
a  limited  toleration,  strictly  laid  down  by  a  formal  statute, 
was  the  only  one  which  was  recognized  by  English  or 
Provincial  law.  The  natural  right  to  religious  liberty,  as 
it  is  now  called,  was  not  asserted,  except  by  a  stray  philos- 
opher, until  the  period  of  our  Revolution.  Toleration  in 
that  era  meant  simply  an  exemption  from  the  penalties 
which  had  been  imposed  upon  Dissenters  from  the  Estab- 
lished Church  by  various  statutes  which  had  been  enacted 
since  the  Reformation. 

The  utmost  limit  of  that  toleration  was  reached  by  a 
statute  of  the  first  year  of  William  and  Mary,  1689,  com- 


8 

monly  called  "  the  Toleration  Act,"  which  relieved  certain 
Dissenters,  including  Quakers  who  took  the  Test  and  made 
the  Declaration  against  certain  Roman  Catholic  dogmas, 
from  penalties  to  which  at  the  time  they  were  amenable. 
The  early  legislation  here  of  the  Assembly,  professed  to 
give  a  wider  or  freer  toleration  than  that  granted  in  England 
by  that  Act.     Hinc  illae  lacrymae. 

The  English  Churchman  in  this  Province,  and  especially 
the  English  clergyman  sent  here  by  the  Bishop  of  London, 
regarded  all  these  pretensions  of  the  Quakers  as  unfounded, 
illegal  and  extravagant.  The  clergyman  when  ordered 
here  for  duty  by  the  Bishop  of  London  might  be  a  poor 
missionary,  but  he  was  a  member  of  what  he  called  the 
Established  Church  in  America,  and  he  brought  with  him, 
in  his  opinion,  the  whole  power  of  that  Church,  with  all 
the  rights  and  immunities  with  which  it  was  clothed  in 
England.  He  had  a  lofty  conception  of  the  inherent  dig- 
nity of  his  office.  The  Bishop  of  London  was  his  lawful 
superior,  he  alone  having  jurisdiction  over  him,  and  in  his 
church  courts  alone  could  he  be  called  upon  to  account  for 
any  offence  in  which  the  rights  of  conscience  or  his  rights 
as  a  clergyman  were  involved.  The  tenure  of  his  office 
was  life-long ;  his  congregation  and  his  vestry  had  no  con- 
trol either  in  choosing  or  deposing  him.  With  many  of 
the  clergy  sent  to  this  country,  it  was  a  favorite  maxim 
that  vestries  were  useless  bodies,  and  they  held  to  the  old- 
world  doctrine  that  the  clergy  should  be  supported  by  the 
State  ;  if  not  directly  by  tithes,  then  by  setting  apart  large 
tracts  of  land,  the  income  of  which  should  be  reserved  for 
their  support.  In  a  word,  for  many  years  they  held  that 
any  action  of  the  Provincial  Government  which  interfered 
with  their  status  and  privileges  here,  as  members  of  the 
Established  Church  of  England,  as  settled  by  the  statutes 


of  the  realm,  should  be  disallowed  by  the  Privy  Council ; 
hence  the  frequent  appeals  on  their  part  to  the  Imperial 
Government,  asking  not  merely  that  such  action  should  be 
declared  illegal  and  void,  but  that  the  Proprietary  Govern- 
ment should  be  abolished  as  incurably  bent  on  setting 
aside  their  privileges,  which  they  claimed  as  absolute  in 
English  law. 

With  claims  such  as  these,  and  with  the  feeling  of  supe- 
riority to  their  fellow-colonists  begotten  of  those  claims,  it 
is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  any  act  of  the  Quaker  majority 
of  the  Assembly,  which  seemed  to  dispute  their  validity, 
should  be  severely  criticised  and  opposed  by  the  Episcopal 
clergy.  It  is  perhaps  not  too  much  to  say  that  the  Church- 
men from  the  beginning,  under  the  lead  of  Colonel  Quarry, 
the  Judge  of  Admiralty,  and  the  most  conspicuous  member 
of  the  vestry  of  Christ  Church,  were  anxious  to  substitute 
a  Royal  for  a  Proprietary  Government,  but  they  were 
ready,  before  the  controversy  was  closed,  to  avow  that  it 
was  their  purpose  to  contend  for  it.  In  the  meantime,  a 
most  uncomfortable  feeling  existed  between  the  parties,  and, 
any  act  of  the  majority  which  could  be  construed  to  con- 
strain the  actions  of  Churchmen  in  any  way,  seemed  likely 
to  kindle  into  a  consuming  flame  the  spirit  of  discord  which 
grew  apace  with  the  growth  of  Christ  Church. 

But  the  clergy  were  not  the  only  complainants;  mur- 
murs of  dissatisfaction  were  heard  among  those  of  the 
laity,  who  were  not  Quakers,  that  the  legislation  of  the 
Quaker  Provincial  Assembly  was  inconsistant  with  the 
Charter  and  the  safety  of  the  Province.  No  proper  pre- 
paration, it  was  alleged,  was  made  to  protect  the  inhabitants 
against  the  pirates  in  Delaware  Bay,  the  French  and 
Indians,  the  Test  Oath  was  made  more  indulgent  in  its 
terms  than  had  been  prescribed  by  Parliament  and  a  general 


lO 

disposition,  it  was  said,  was  shown  to  govern  the  Province 
on  Quaker  principles,  not  on  those  distinctively  English. 

To  those  who  have  looked  on  William  Penn  as  the 
apostle  of  toleration,  it  seems  indeed  strange  that  the  very 
first  complaint  made  by  the  vestry  and  congregation  of 
Christ  Church  against  the  legislation  of  the  Assembly  and 
the  action  of  the  magistrates  under  it,  was  that  it  violated 
the  civil  and  religious  rights  of  these  Englishmen,  inhabi- 
tants of  the  Province,  who  were  not  Quakers.  Yet  such  was 
the  charge  brought  before  the  Privy  Council.  Within  ten 
years  after  the  settlement  of  the  Province,  George  Keith,  at 
one  time  a  most  zealous  Quaker  and  a  very  learned  man, 
but  who  afterwards  became  a  very  active  church  missionary, 
denounced  the  leaders  of  his  former  friends  in  a  manner, 
which,  to  put  it  mildly,  constituted  the  serious  offence  (as 
the  Quakers  considered  it  and  had  so  declared  by  a  Provin- 
cial statue),  of  "speaking  evil  of  dignities."  For  this 
offence  Keith  was  brought  before  the  magistrates  (many 
of  whom  were  members  of  the  Ecclesiastical  Meeting,  a 
tribunal  which  had  deposed  him  from  his  membership  in 
the  Society),  and  being  somewhat  bullied  by  them,  he  lost 
his  temper  and  abused  his  judges  in  his  turn.  For  this  he 
was  nominally  condemned  to  pay  a  fine,  but  the  Churchmen 
chose  to  consider  his  sentence  as  really  that  of  an  apostate, 
and  not  merely  the  punishment  meted  out  to  an  offender 
against  the  statute  which  prohibited  speaking  disrespect- 
fully of  the  Government  or  its  ofhcers.  His  friends,  and 
especially  Churchmen,  took  up  his  cause  with  zeal,  and  as 
they  had  no  hope  of  relief  from  the  Provincial  Govern- 
ment, they  went  to  the  root  of  the  matter  and  sent  a  peti- 
tion to  the  Imperial  Government,  begging  it  to  depose  that 
of  the  Proprietary.  They  insisted  that  Keith  had  been 
tried  by  a  tribunal  which  had  no  legal  authority  whatever, 


II 

the  judges  never  having  been  qualified  for  their  office  by 
taking  either  the  oath  or  affirmation  then  required  of  all 
officials  by  the  Imperial  Government.  They  insisted,  too, 
that  Keith  had  really  been  condemned  for  an  ecclesiastical, 
not  for  a  civil  offence,  and  thus  that  the  rights  of  non- 
Quakers  were  put  in  jeopardy.  These  charges,  which 
accused  the  authorities  of  a  flagrant  usurpation  of  power, 
were  formally  laid  before  the  Privy  Council  in  England. 
At  the  same  time  it  was  alleged  that  the  Quakers,  owing 
to  their  conscientious  scruples  about  war,  had  taken  no 
measures  to  protect  the  shores  of  Delaware  Bay  from  the 
incursions  of  pirates.  As  William  Penn  was  probably 
thought  by  the  new  sovereigns  to  be  something  of  a 
Jacobite,  owing  to  his  favor  with  James  II,  he  was  suspended 
from  his  government,  which  was  handed  over  temporarily 
to  Governor  Fletcher,  of  New  York.  Thus  it  would  appear 
that  the  lay  element  of  the  Church  here,  even  before  the 
formal  organization  of  Christ  Church,  was  strong  enough 
to  induce  the  English  Government  to  revolutionize  the 
administration,  mainly  on  the  ground  that  the  rights  of  non- 
Quakers  were  not  adequately  protected  by  the  action  of  the 
Provincial  Assembly  which  the  Quaker  majority  controlled. 
It  is  difficult,  I  confess,  to  understand  with  our  present 
notions  of  religious  liberty,  how  the  Churchmen,  possessing, 
as  they  did,  freedom  of  worship  and  the  absolute  control  of 
the  property  belonging  to  their  Church,  could  have  made 
any  complaint  on  that  score  of  a  violation  of  the  religious 
rights  of  those  who  were  non-Quakers.  However  this  may 
be,  it  was  evident  that  the  Provincial  Assembly  did  not 
learn  wisdom  from  experience.  In  1698,  after  the  Proprie- 
tary Government  had  been  restored,  the  magistrates  con- 
tinued their  prosecutions  against  those  who  attacked  the 
Provincial  Government,  and  their  opponents  asked  that  the 


12 

King  should  take  them  under  his  special  care,  A  petition 
to  the  Crown  requesting  that  such  a  change  should  be  made 
was  denounced  by  the  Provincial  Magistrates  as  seditious, 
and  its  supposed  author  was  arrested  and  condemned  for 
violating  the  statute  making  it  a  penal  offence  to  speak 
disrespectfully  of  the  Government  and  its  officers.  To 
this  was  added  by  the  non-Quakers  a  protest  against  a 
statute  passed  in  1700,  substituting  a  new  form  of  test  in 
the  room  of  that  which  had  heretofore  been  in  force  by 
virtue  of  the  Toleration  Act,  by  which  the  Quakers  here 
were  granted  a  toleration  which  did  not  exist  in  England. 
All  these  measures  were  protested  against  by  the  vestry  of 
Christ  Church  as  an  invasion  of  what  they  called  their 
religious  rights  as  members  of  the  Church  of  England. 
They  sent  a  second  time  a  petition  to  the  Privy  Council  by 
Colonel  Quarry,  asking  that  some  remedy  for  their  griev- 
ances should  be  found.  So  great  was  the  influence  of  this 
then  feeble  Church  with  the  Imperial  authorities,  that  they 
were  again  led  to  interpose,  and  orders  were  sent  out  here  in 
1702  requiring  that  hereafter  all  persons  who  wished  to 
celebrate  their  worship  publicly  or  to  hold  any  office  under 
the  Provincial  Government  without  exposing  themselves  to 
the  law  against  non-conformity,  should  be  obliged  to  make 
a  declaration  of  fidelitv  and  allegiance  to  the  sovereign  and 
to  take  the  Test ;  that  is,  make  a  declaration  of  their  dis- 
belief in  certain  Roman  Catholic  Dosfmas  in  the  exact 
form  provided  by  the  Toleration  Act.  There  was  at  first 
considerable  hesitation  here  in  taking  this  Test,  not  that 
there  was  any  objection  to  the  doctrines  it  avowed,  but  the 
objections  were  as  to  the  form  of  the  affirmation  required. 
The  Assembly  was  induced  in  1705,  by  what  influence  I 
have  never  have  been  able  clearly  to  understand,  to  embody 
in  a  statute  provisions  requiring  all  persons  in  the  Province 


13 

to  qualify  themselves  for  taking  any  office  by  taking  and 
subscribing  the  Test  and  affirming  their  belief  in  the  Decla- 
ration as  an  indispensable  qualification  before  assuming  its 
duties.  This  Act,  which  is  simply  a  copy  of  the  English 
Toleration  Act,  remained  in  force  up  to  the  time  of  the 
Revolution,  and  it  seems  to  have  settled  the  vexed  question 
how  far  any  one  could  go  astray  from  the  orthodoxy 
required  by  the  Imperial  Government  and  yet  hold  office, 
by  pleading  that  another  standard  had  been  set  up  by  the 
Assembly  of  the  Province.  The  policy  which  provided 
that  these  Tests  should  prevail  in  Pennsylvania  was  in 
strict  imitation  of  the  widest  form  of  toleration  then 
known  in  England.  If  we  wish  to  trace  the  influence  of 
Christ  Church  on  the  lay  element  during  the  Provincial 
era,  not  only  here  but  in  England,  we  cannot  do  better 
than  consider  carefully  the  part  that  she  took  in  this  other- 
wise profitless  controversy,  and  for  that  reason  I  have 
called  attention  to  these  long-forgotten  quarrels.  1  have 
alluded  to  them  here  only  because  they  jeopardized  the 
existence  of  the  Proprietary  Government. 

At  this  time  (1705)  the  congregation  consisted  of  about 
five  hundred  members,  and  the  number  of  persons  in  the 
Province  who  were  Episcopalians  was  constantly  increas- 
ing. Mission  Churches  were  established  at  Chester,  Oxford, 
Radnor,  New  Castle  and  Dover,  which  were  served  by 
clergymen  sent  out  by  the  Venerable  Society.  And  as  they 
secured  a  firmer  footing  in  the  Province,  the  fear  which 
had  oppressed  the  earliest  members  of  the  Church  that 
they  would  perish  from  their  own  weakness,  gave  way  to  a 
more  hopeful  spirit.  Still,  as  late  as  17 18,  the  friends  of 
the  Church,  both  here  and  in  England,  endeavored  to  per- 
suade Sir  William  Keith,  the  most  popular  of  the  Proprie- 
tary Governors,  and  the  one  least  inclined  to  stretch  his 


14 

prerogative,  to  make  an  effort  to  secure  permanent  legal 
support  for  the  Church.  His  answer  tells  the  whole  story 
in  a  single  sentence,  "  I  agree  with  you,"  he  says,  "  that 
the  Church  should  be  endowed  by  the  Province,  but  what 
can  I  do  for  such  an  object  with  an  Assembly  composed  of 
twenty-five  Quakers  and  three  Churchmen." 

As  time  passed  on  the  controversial  spirit  became  less 
bitter,  and  indeed  differences  of  opinion  grew  less  marked 
as  people  knew  each  other  better.  Churchmen  became 
less  exclusive  and  welcomed  here  in  this  Church  the 
ministrations  of  the  Swedish  Lutheran  clergyman  who 
had  charge  of  the  Swedish  Mission  here.  For  many  years 
the  services  of  the  Church  were  in  charge  at  different 
times  of  Rudman,  Sandel,  Lidman,  Hesselius  and  Lin- 
denius,  who  were  recognized  as  in  full  communion  with 
the  Church  of  England,  although  they  had  been  ordained 
by  the  Archbishop  of  Upsal  and  not  by  the  English 
Bishops.  As  one  remarkable  result  of  this  fraternal  spirit, 
and  as  illustrating  how  the  influence  of  this  Church 
extended  beyond  its  borders,  I  may  remind  you  that  four 
churches  originally  Swedish  in  this  State,  one  in  Delaware 
and  one  in  New  Jersey,  became,  at  different  times,  by  the 
almost  unanimous  vote  of  their  congregations,  constituent 
members  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  in  the  United 
States. 

In  speaking  of  the  influence  of  the  members  of  this 
congregation  on  public  affairs  during  the  Provincial  era,  I 
must  not  forget  to  claim  for  some  of  them  the  great  honor 
of  having  been  the  founders  and  the  early  guardians  of  the 
College  and  Academy  of  Philadelphia.  Dr.  Franklin,  who 
first  conceived  the  plan  of  this  establishment,  and  sought 
with  characteristic  vigor  to  organize  it  by  securing  money 
for  its  endowment  and  selecting  its  professors,  was  a  pew- 


15 

holder  in  this  Church,  although  he  disclaimed  anj^  inten- 
tion of  making  the  College  a  Church  institution.  He 
preferred  that  in  a  Province  such  as  this,  it  should  rest 
upon  what  was  called  in  those  days  the  "  broad  bottom," 
that  is,  that  it  should  be  independent  of  the  control  of  any 
Church  or  denomination.  But  when  he  looked  around  for 
those  who  would  appreciate  and  support  his  project,  he  was 
obliged  to  take  from  this  Congregation  mainly  the  men  of 
education  and  of  means  who  would  aid  him.  His  first 
choice  for  Rector  or  Head  Master  of  the  Academy  was  the 
Rev.  Richard  Peters,  one  of  the  most  scholarly  men  in  the 
Province,  who  had  long  held  the  important  place  of  Secre- 
tary of  the  Land  Office  and  afterwards  for  nearly  ten  years 
was  the  Rector  of  Christ  Church.  Finding  it  impossible 
to  induce  Mr.  Peters  to  accept  the  place,  he  made  the  final 
choice  of  Rev.  William  Smith,  a  man  of  indomitable 
energy,  of  very  considerable  learning  and  of  great  organ- 
izing power.  Mr.  Smith  was  an  Episcopal  clergyman  of 
high  reputation,  and,  as  far  as  a  man  in  his  position  could 
be,  he  was  a  member  of  this  Congregation.  He  gave  life 
and  vigor  to  the  skeleton  plan  which  Dr.  Franklin  had 
sketched  out.  His  experience  as  a  teacher  and  his  various 
learning  led  him  afterwards  into  paths  where  Dr.  Franklin 
could  not  follow  him,  yet  his  scheme  of  college  education, 
in  accordance  with  the  universal  judgment  of  scholars,  for 
more  than  a  hundred  years  formed  the  true  model  for  the 
liberal  training  of  young  men  in  this  country.  He  induced 
the  Trustees  of  the  Academy,  shortly  after  his  induc- 
tion, to  solicit  from  the  Proprietaries  a  charter  for  a  Col- 
lege, and,  this  obtained,  he  established  as  a  means  of 
instruction  in  this  institution  a  ciwriculum  of  studies 
which  formed  the  basis  of  education  afterwards  followed 
by  every  college  in  this  country  professing  to  give  a  liberal 


i6 

training  to  young  men.  The  result  of  the  life  and  vigor 
which  he  had  infused  into  the  College  which  he  had 
created,  was,  in  the  opinion  of  the  late  Dr.  George  Wood, 
such,  that  in  a  short  time  this  College,  founded  by  two  of 
your  members,  "  was  perhaps  unrivalled  and  certainly  not 
surpassed  by  any  seminary  at  that  time  existing  in  the 
Provinces."  And  I  may  add,  that  had  it  escaped  from  the 
mischievous  designs  of  unscrupulous  politicians  during 
the  Revolution,  and  had  its  affairs  since  that  era  always 
been  managed  with  the  same  self-sacrificing  devotion  and 
fidelity  to  its  interests  exhibited  by  its  Trustees  before  that 
change,  it  would  doubtless  to-day  occupy  the  same  proud 
pre-eminence.  Of  the  Trustees  previous  to  the  Revolution 
nearly  four-fifths  were  members  of  this  Congregation,  and 
this  was  the  period  when  its  work  was  most  active  and  the 
demands  on  their  enlightened  care  incessant.  Mr.  Peters, 
the  Rector  of  the  Church, was  for  many  years  the  President 
of  the  Board,  and  the  Trustees,  agreeing  with  Dr.  Smith 
as  to  the  plan  of  education  which  had  been  adopted,  and 
disagreeing  wholly,  much  to  his  chagrin,  with  that  urged 
by  Dr.  Franklin,  supported  fully  their  Provost,  not  only  in 
all  his  efforts  for  the  promotion  of  higher  education  here, 
but  in  all  the  various  trials  and  difficulties  into  which  his 
eager  and  impetuous  temper  led  him.  Dr.  Smith  was  a 
strict  Churchman  for  those  daj^s,  as  were  doubtless  the 
majority  of  the  Trustees  of  the  College,  but  they  ever 
maintained  its  original  design  by  selecting  as  its  professors 
men  who  represented  the  various  denominations  in  the 
city.  One  of  the  more  immediate  good  results  of  the 
establishment  of  this  College,  was  the  training  of  men  who 
occupied  a  prominent  position  as  ministers  of  Christ 
Church  at  the  outbreak  of  the  Revolution.  William 
White,  Jacob  Duche  and  Thomas  Coombe  were  all  gradu- 


17 

ates  of  the   College    of   Philadelphia   and    received    their 
training  from  Dr.  Smith. 

Between  the  years  1740  and  1756  there  was  perpetual 
fear  of  war  and  an  invasion  of  this  Province  by  the  Indians 
and  French,  who  had  formed  what  was  intended  to  be  a 
permanent  alliance,  and  had  established  themselves  on  the 
line  between  Pittsburgh  and  Lake  Erie.  The  object  of  the 
invasion  on  the  part  of  the  French  was  supposed  by  many 
who  thought  themselves  wise,  to  be  part  of  a  systematic 
scheme  to  subjugate  the  English  colonists  on  the  borders 
of  the  Atlantic,  in  this  and  other  Provinces ;  to  make  them 
dependencies  of  France,  and,  worse  than  all,  to  force,  by 
persecution,  the  inhabitants  to  become  Roman  Catholics. 
However  chimerical  all  these  fears  may  appear  to  us  now, 
there  is  no  doubt  of  the  reality  of  the  anxiety  and  appre- 
hension which  they  excited  at  the  time.  To  the  intensity 
of  the  desire  to  make  some  adequate  military  preparation 
to  defend  themselves,  was  added  the  natural  dread  of  con- 
tending with  such  a  nation  as  France,  when  no  means  of 
defence  had  been  made  ready,  as  well  as  a  special  horror  of 
the  practices  of  the  savage  and  inhuman  warfare  of  the 
Indians.  Those  who  had  now  combined  against  us  were 
the  descendants  of  those  whom  William  Penn  on  his 
arrival  had  found  so  friendly — the  Delawares  and  the 
Shawnees,  who  had  been  made  desperate  by  the  cruel  and 
fraudulent  appropriation  of  their  lands  by  his  successors. 
Gentle  as  lambs  when  the  white  man  first  came  among 
them,  they  had  become  fiends  now,  as  all  the  accounts  of 
their  cruel  massacres  of  the  inhabitants  clearly  showed. 
The  settlers  in  the  territory  exposed  to  these  ravages  called 
loudly  upon  the  Government  for  protection  and  succor. 
Although  the  deepest  sympathy  was  expressed  on  all 
hands  for  their  unfortunate  condition,  no  troops  were  sent 


i8 

to  defend  them,  owing  to  the  quarrel  between  the  Governor 
and  the  Assembly  as  to  the  best  mode  by  which  the  sol- 
diers and  the  money  for  their  support  should  be  raised. 
The  Governor,  to  state  the  nature  of  the  controversy  in  a 
single  sentence,  urged  that  a  Militia  Bill,  which  should 
enroll  as  many  of  the  able-bodied  men  of  the  Province  as 
might  be  needed,  should  be  passed,  and  that  a  tax  should 
be  levied  for  their  pay  and  equipment  from  which  the 
immense  private  estates  of  the  Proprietaries  should  be 
exempted ;  while  the  Assembly  contended  that  the  neces- 
sary force  should  be  raised  by  a  voluntary  enlistment,  and 
that  loans  should  be  issued  to  raise  money,  to  be  reim- 
bursed by  general  taxation,  for  the  maintenance  of  the 
troops.  For  many  years  this  wearisome  and  profitless 
struggle  continued  and  nothing  was  done  in  the  way  of 
defence  of  the  frontier  or  to  avert  the  threatened  danger  of 
invasion.  The  Governor  and  the  Proprietary  party  insisted 
that  the  refusal  to  adopt  his  suggestions  was  owing  to  con- 
scientious scruples  on  the  part  of  the  Quakers  about 
making  war,  but  so  untrue  was  this  charge  that  the 
Assembly,  goaded  into  action  by  Braddock's  defeat  in  July, 
1755,  consented  at  last  to  exempt  the  estates  of  the  Pro- 
prietaries from  taxation,  in  consideration  of  a  gift  by  them 
to  the  Province  of  five  thousand  pounds,  and  established  a 
chain  of  forts  from  the  Delaware  to  the  Maryland  frontier 
along  the  Alleghany  Mountains,  garrisoned  by  a  body  of 
volunteers,  Provincial  troops,  w"ho  for  a  long  time  effectu- 
ally guarded  the  threatened  districts.  In  this  controversy 
the  larger  number  of  the  members  of  this  congregation 
sided  with  the  Proprietary  party,  having  convinced  them- 
selves that  no  Assembly  in  which  the  Quakers  had  a 
majority  of  the  votes  would,  under  any  circumstances, 
adopt  warlike  measures.    They  went  so  far  on  this  account 


19 

as  to  join  with  the  Presbyterians,  who  had  suffered  most 
severely  from  the  Indian  raids  after  Braddock's  defeat,  in 
a  petition  to  the  Crown,  being  the  third  time  in  which 
they  had  made  the  same  application,  asking  that  Quakers 
should  not  be  permitted  hereafter  to  sit  as  members  of  the 
Assembly.  Their  action  must  be  attributed  to  a  deep- 
rooted  delusion  on  the  subject,  which  then  prevailed  here, 
and  which  perhaps  the  professed  principles  of  the  Quakers 
had  done  much  to  foster,  and  to  the  natural  anxiety  which 
they  felt  to  prevent  the  possibility  of  the  recurrence  of 
a  neglect  of  the  safety  of  the  Province. 

But  during  the  years  of  danger  which  threatened  their 
safety,  when  the  accounts  from  the  West  told  of  little  but 
of  Indian  outrages  and  French  victories  and  marches  east- 
ward, the  conduct  of  this  congregation  was  marked  by  a 
manliness  and  courage  and  readiness  to  make  sacrifices  for 
the  safety  of  the  Province,  worthy  of  all  praise  as  an 
example,  and  to  which  those  who  succeed  them  here  may 
point  with  becoming  pride.  They  were  taught  from  this 
pulpit  the  Christian  duty  of  warfare  in  defending  them- 
selves. Dr.  Smith  tells  us  that  in  this  crisis  he  preached 
here  no  less  than  eight  military  sermons,  as  he  calls  them, 
and  we  may  be  quite  sure  that  in  them  the  duty  of  defend- 
ing their  lives  and  their  homes  from  a  French  and  Indian 
invasion  was  duly  inculcated.  We  may  be  also  certain 
from  what  we  know  of  the  membership  of  Christ  Church 
at  that  time,  that  the  men  on  whom  the  Governor  most 
fully  depended  at  that  critical  time  for  the  safety  of  the 
Province,  were  to  be  found  among  those  who  gathered 
here  to  worship  God.  The  military  spirit  which  prevailed 
in  the  congregation  was  so  marked  that,  in  1758,  at  the 
opening  of  the  campaign  of  that  year  General  Forbes, 
commander  of   the   army  in  this  Province,  could  find  no 


20 

better  means  of  rousing  the  military  ardor  of  the  inhabi- 
tants than  by  asking  Dr.  Smith  to  denounce  here  once 
more  the  horrible  cruelties  which  his  army  was  sent  to 
avenge. 

During  the  eventful  years  (1740- 17 56)  in  which  the 
Province  was  forced  to  defend  itself  from  the  incursions  of 
the  Indians  to  the  westward,  none  of  the  inhabitants  who 
formed  social  organizations  were  more  zealous  and  steady 
in  upholding  the  hands  of  those  to  whom  were  committed 
the  safety,  honor  and  welfare  of  the  people  of  this  Prov- 
ince, than  the  members  of  this  congregation.  Opinions 
might  differ,  and  doubtless  often  did,  among  them  in  regard 
to  the  righteousness  of  the  conduct  of  the  agents  of  the 
Government  in  their  treatment  of  the  Indians,  but  when 
these  savages  determined  to  wreak  their  vengeance  by  an 
indiscriminate  slaughter  of  the  inhabitants,  the  law  which 
Churchmen  invoked  was  that  of  self-defence.  At  that 
time  the  members  of  Christ  Church  succored  the  distressed 
inhabitants  west  of  the  Susquehanna  by  timely  gifts,  and 
they  urged  the  immediate  necessity  of  raising  money  and 
men  to  protect  them,  profiting  by  the  lessons  which  they 
had  learned,  as  I  have  stated,  from  this  pulpit  as  to  the 
clear  duty  of  the  citizen  and  the  Christian.  At  that  time 
the  special  interest  which  the  members  of  this  Church 
could  feel  as  Episcopalians  in  the  sufferings  of  those 
exposed  to  Indian  assaults  was  centered  in  a  feeble  mission 
of  the  Venerable  Society,  of  which  the  headquarters  were 
at  Carlisle.  But  the  sympathy  exhibited  by  them  in  this 
city  for  the  victims  of  savage  cruelty  was  not  bounded  by 
any  such  narrow  frontier.  Judging  from  the  names 
attached  to  a  petition  to  the  Crown  in  1756,  praying  that 
hereafter  no  non-resistant  Quaker  should  be  permitted  to 
hold  a  seat  in  the  Assembly,  the  members  of  this  congre- 


21 

gation  were  the  most  determined  of  those  who  were  willing 
to  undergo  any  revolutionary  change  in  government  which 
would  guarantee  that  the  white  population  of  the  Province 
should  be  duly  protected. 

There  were  many  officers,  members  and  pew-holders  in 
Christ  Church  in  the  regiments  raised  by  the  government 
of  the  Province  for  service  during  the  French  and  Indian 
wars.  General  James  Irvine,  who  was  a  prominent  mem- 
ber of  this  congregation,  and  is  traditionally  remembered 
from  his  always  appearing  clad  in  mourning  on  Good 
Friday,  began  his  military  career  as  an  officer  in  Bouquet's 
expedition  for  the  recapture  of  Fort  Duquesne,  and  was 
during  the  Revolution  an  officer  of  high  rank  in  the 
Pennsylvania  Line.  Among  others,  we  find  the  well- 
known  names  of  Colonels  Thomas  Lawrence,  Edward 
Jones  and  Turbutt  Francis ;  of  Lieut.-Colonels  Thomas 
Yorke  and  James  Coultas ;  of  Major  Samuel  McCall ;  of 
Captain  Thomas  Bond ;  of  Lieutenants  Lynford  Lardner, 
William  Bingham,  Atwood  Shute,  James  Claypoole  and 
Plunket  Fleeson. 

It  is  not  to  be  forgotten  that  the  social  position  of  many 
of  the  members  of  this  Parish  (the  united  Churches  of 
Christ  and  St.  Peter's)  gave  them  an  influence  out  of  all 
proportion  with  their  numbers.  It  is  true,  of  course,  that 
in  the  Provincial  era  the  laymen  of  this  Church  were, 
generally  speaking,  of  the  Proprietary  party,  and  had  sup- 
ported the  war  measures  of  that  party ;  but  when  they 
found  that  the  government  of  the  Province  had  become 
that  of  a  deputy,  without  whose  consent  no  legislation 
could  be  enacted,  and  who  was  bound  in  his  acts  to  obey 
the  instructions  of  the  Proprietaries  in  England,  and  who 
was  in  no  way  responsible  to  the  people  of  the  Province 
for  them,  they  joined  with  other  parties  in  the  Assembly 


22 

in  unanimously  declaring,  in  1763,  that  pretensions  such 
as  these  were  as  dangerous  to  the  prerogatives  of  the 
Crown  as  they  were  to  the  liberties  of  the  people.  Pro- 
prietary men  as  they  were  supposed  to  be,  they  had  no 
hesitation  in  praying  the  King,  for  the  fourth  time,  with 
Dr.  Franklin,  in  1764,  that  he  would  resume  the  govern- 
ment of  the  Province  and  that  the  Proprietary  system 
should  be  abolished. 

The  signs  of  the  times  became  more  portentous  after  the 
enactment  of  the  Stamp  Act  of  1765,  and  it  soon  became  ap- 
parent that  there  would  be  as  much  opposition  here  on  the 
part  of  the  Churchmen  to  Imperial  misgovernment,  as  there 
had  been  to  the  arbitrary  pretensions  of  the  Governors. 
Indeed,  it  is  hardly  worth  proving  that  during  these 
perilous  times  all  classes  of  people  in  Pennsylvania,  resist- 
ants  and  non-resistants  alike,  protested  against  the  Minis- 
terial measures.  The  members  of  this  cong^reoation,  in 
common  with  their  fellow-citizens  of  other  beliefs,  remon- 
strated against  the  Stamp  Act  and  the  Tea  Act,  as  well  as 
against  the  Boston  Port  Bill  and  other  measures  intended 
to  punish  the  town  of  Boston  ;  they  all  signed  the  Non- 
importation and  the  Non-exportation  Agreements  ;  they  all 
petitioned  the  Crown  to  guarantee  the  right  of  self-govern- 
ment ;  they  determined  to  maintain  the  fundamental  rights 
of  the  colonies;  they  warned  the  Ministry  that  armed 
resistance  would  be  made  to  further  encroachments,  and 
they  did  not  hesitate  to  vote  for  raising  men  and  money  for 
the  defence  of  the  Province  after  the  battle  of  Lexington. 
Yet  with  all  this,  they  never  ceased  to  hope  that  some 
peaceful  settlement  of  the  dispute  might  be  made  and  that 
no  violent  separation  from  the  Mother  Country  would  take 
place.  As  the  crisis  of  the  Revolution  approached,  the 
opinions  held  by  the  congregation  as  to  the  course  they 


23 

would  take,  are  best  expressed  in  the  letter  of  their  clergy 
to  the  Bishop  of  London.  In  this  letter,  dated  June  30, 
1775,  the  clergy  of  this  parish,  Messrs.  Richard  Peters, 
Jacob  Duche,  Thomas  Coombe,  William  Stringer  and 
William  W^hite,  join  with  Dr.  Smith,  the  Provost  of  the 
College,  in  saying  to  the  Bishop  of  London,  "All  that  we 
can  do  is  to  pray  for  such  a  settlement  and  to  pursue  those 
principles  of  moderation  and  reason  which  your  Lordship 
has  always  recommended  to  us.  We  have  neither  interest 
nor  consequence  sufficient  to  take  any  great  lead  in  the 
affairs  of  this  great  country.  The  people  will  feel  and 
judge  for  themselves  in  matters  affecting  their  own  civil 
happiness,  and  were  we  capable  of  any  attempt  which 
might  have  the  appearance  of  drawing  them  to  what  they 
think  would  be  a  slavish  resignation  of  their  rights,  it 
would  be  destructive  to  ourselves  as  well  as  to  the  Church 
of  which  we  are  ministers.  But  it  is  but  justice  to  our 
superiors,  and  to  your  Lordship  in  particular,  to  declare 
that  such  conduct  has  never  been  required  of  us.  Indeed, 
could  it  possibly  be  required,  we  are  not  backward  to  say 
that  our  consciences  would  not  permit  us  to  injure  the 
rights  of  the  country.  We  are  to  leave  our  families  in  it, 
and  cannot  but  consider  its  inhabitants  entitled,  as  well  as 
their  brethren  in  England,  to  the  right  of  granting  their 
own  money  ;  and  that  every  attempt  to  deprive  them  of 
this  right  will  either  be  found  abortive  in  the  end  or 
attended  with  evils  which  would  infinitely  outweigh  all 
the  benefits  to  be  obtained  by  it.  Such  being  our  persua- 
sion, we  must  again  declare  it  to  be  our  constant  prayer,  in 
which  we  are  sure  that  your  Lordship  joins,  that  the  hearts 
of  good  and  benevolent  men  in  both  countries  may  be 
directed  towards  a  plan  of  reconciliation  worthy  of  being 
offered  by  a  great  nation  that  have  long  been  the  patrons 


24 

of  freedom  throughout  the  world,  and  not  unworthy  of 
being  accepted  by  a  people  sprung  from  them  and  by  birth 
claiming  a  participation  in  their  rights." 

The  sentiments  frankly  expressed  in  this  letter  were  not 
merely  those  of  the  clergy  of  Christ  Church,  but  it  voiced 
doubtless  the  opinion  of  its  lay  members,  as  well  as  that  of 
a  large  circle  of  friends  not  of  their  religious  faith,  but 
within  the  sphere  of  their  influence.  In  a  community 
such  as  Philadelphia  then  was,  it  is  not  easy  to  over- 
estimate the  power  derived  from  the  common  opinion  on  a 
momentous  question  of  its  foremost  citizens.  Men  like 
William  Bingham,  Richard  Bache,  Benjamin  Chew,  John 
Cadwalader,  Gerardus  Clarkson,  Redmond  Conyngham, 
Manuel  Eyre,  Michael  Hillegas,  Archibald  McCall,  Charles 
Meredith,  Edmund  Physick,  William  Plumstead,  Samuel 
Powel,  Edward  Shippen,  Richard  and  Thomas  Willing, 
never  speak  in  vain.  These  are  names  as  familiar  to  those 
who  have  passed  a  long  life  in  Philadelphia  as  household 
words,  and  those  who  bore  them  were  all  members  of  the 
congregation  of  Christ  Church,  This  letter  to  the  Bishop 
of  London  doubtless  reveals  that  feeling  of  mingled  defi- 
ance and  dread  with  which  they  viewed  the  approach  of 
the  Revolution. 

Of  these  clergymen  of  the  Church  here,  it  may  be  said 
that  Messrs.  White  and  Duche  became  afterwards  chaplains 
of  the  Continental  Congress,  and  that  Dr.  Smith  urged,  in 
a  powerful  sermon  delivered  before  Colonel  Cadwalader's 
regiment  of  Volunteer  Associators  in  this  Church,  the 
right  and  duty  of  armed  resistance  if  the  grievances  com- 
plained of  were  not  redressed.  At  that  time  (the  early 
period  of  the  Revolution)  it  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that 
there  was  no  question  of  independence,  for  no  public  man 
in   Pennsylvania,  within  or  without  Christ   Church,  had 


25 

advocated  such  a  measure.  When  the  time  arrived  when 
it  was  thought  necessary  by  Congress  to  proclaim  our  inde- 
pendence, no  less  than  three  of  the  signers  of  that  immortal 
instrument,  Franklin,  Robert  Morris  and  Hopkinson,  were 
found  to  be  pew-holders  in  this  Church.  And  on  the  very 
day  on  which  that  great  charter  of  a  new  nation  was 
signed,  it  was  agreed  by  the  vestry  and  clergy  of  this 
Church  that  the  long-familiar  prayer  for  the  King  and  the 
Royal  Family  should  thenceforth  be  omitted  from  the 
service.  In  short,  in  no  quarter  was  the  action  of  the 
Assembly  of  the  State  and  of  Congress  dissolving  our 
allegiance  to  Great  Britain  more  loyally  obeyed  than  in 
this  Church,  to  which  kings  and  queens  in  happier  days 
had  been  loving  nursing  fathers  and  nursing  mothers. 

With  the  close  of  the  Revolution  that  direct  and  peculiar 
influence  of  Christ  Church  upon  the  lay  element  in  Phila- 
delphia, which,  during  the  Provincial  era,  had  been  so 
characteristic  a  feature  of  its  corporate  life,  in  a  great 
measure  ceased.  Whether  this  was  due  to  changes  which 
then  brought  into  power  men  of  a  very  different  social 
position  and  very  difl'erent  political  ideas  from  those  who 
had  governed  this  community  in  former  days,  I  will  not 
stop  to  inquire.  Whatever  may  have  been  the  cause,  there 
can  be  no  doubt  in  the  mind  of  any  student  of  our  history 
that  Quakers  and  Episcopalians,  the  foremost  citizens  of 
the  Province,  however  faithful  they  may  have  been  to  the 
changes  produced  by  the  Revolution,  lost  their  prestige 
and  political  leadership  in  the  Commonwealth  created  by  it. 

Thenceforth  Christ  Church  entered  upon  a  new  era,  and 
devoted  herself  to  the  propagation  exclusively  of  that 
special  form  of  Christianity  of  which  she  had  been  the 
recognized  representative  here.  Under  the  guidance  of 
that  wise,  discreet,  revered  and  saintly  man  who  was  then 


26 

her  Rector  and  was  soon  afterwards  to  become  the  chief 
pastor  of  this  diocese,  she  became  in  a  very  important 
sense,  omnium  ecclesiar2i7n  mater  et  caput. 

Bishop  White,  I  need  not  say,  was  not  only  a  great 
Churchman,  but  he  was  a  great  citizen  also.  From  the 
stormy  days  of  the  Revolution,  when  he  taught  Congress 
that  resistance  to  oppression  is  a  religious  duty  ;  from  the 
day  in  which  in  his  study  in  St.  Peter's  house  in  this  city 
he  outlined  a  plan  for  the  Federal  Union  of  the  Church, 
down  to  the  day  when  he  was  laid  at  rest  under  the  chan- 
cel of  this  Church,  the  great  work  of  his  life  was,  so  to 
speak,  the  naturalization  of  the  order  and  discipline  of  the 
Protestant  Episcopal  Church  under  its  new  conditions  in 
this  country.  What  measure  of  success  attended  his  efforts 
it  is  not  my  province  to  speak  of,  but  I  may  venture  to 
affirm  that  the  Church  in  this  country  can  never  be  too 
grateful  for  what  she  owes  to  his  wisdom  and  sagacity. 
He  is  the  great  link  which  binds  the  past  to  the  present. 
He  was  the  champion  of  all  that  is  true  and  noble  and 
inspiring  in  the  history  of  that  form  of  Christianity  of 
which  he  was  here  the  chief  minister,  and  to  no  wiser 
hands  could  the  great  task  of  adapting  that  historical  and 
venerable  form  of  ecclesiastical  polity  to  our  present  need 
have  been  confided  than  to  his. 

I  count  it  as  one  of  the  happiest  recollections  of  my 
youth  that  I  should  have  been  permitted  to  see  Bishop 
White  in  the  last  year  of  his  life,  not  robed  in  his  canon- 
ical vestments  nor  surrounded  by  those  things  calculated 
to  impress  a  boyish  imagination  with  the  dignity  of  his 
position,  but  walking  these  streets  in  the  ordinary  dress  of 
a  clergyman  of  that  day.  His  tall,  spare  figure,  his  cos- 
tume, that  of  a  gentleman  of  the  old  school,  the  broad- 
brimmed  hat  which  half  concealed  his  flowing  white  locks, 


27 

his  ample  coat,  his  short  clothes,  his  long  stockings  and 
buckled  shoes,  and  his  stout  walking  staff — all  these 
things  made  him  truly  venerable  in  my  eyes  and  produced 
an  impression  which  the  lapse  of  sixty  years  has  not 
removed.  As  he  passed  along,  supported  on  the  arm  of  his 
grandson,  I  remember  that  I  looked  upon  him,  as  I  had 
ever  been  taught  to  regard  him,  as  the  last  of  the  Revolu- 
tionary patriots.  To  those  who  met  him  and  knew  any- 
thing of  his  history  and  character,  he  was  the  type  and 
exemplar  of  that  pure  and  lofty  doctrine  which  he  had 
preached  all  his  life.  His  perfect  sincerity,  his  genuine 
simplicity,  his  boundless  charity  of  act  and  opinion 
towards  those  who  differed  from  him,  caused  him  to  be 
recognized,  as  was  well  said  by  a  distinguished  divine  of 
another  communion  than  his,  as  "  truly  the  Bishop  of  us 
all." 

With  such  a  history  and  with  such  personages  serving 
as  illustrations  of  it,  Christ  Church  is  not  merely  a  temple 
where  men  have  met  during  the  last  two  hundred  years  to 
worship  God  after  the  manner  of  their  fathers,  but  it  is 
also  one  of  the  brightest  jewels  in  the  mural  crown  of  this 
godly  city.  Here  men  have  been  taught  during  all  that 
long  period,  not  merely  their  duty  to  God,  but  also  to  con- 
secrate the  service  of  their  lives  to  the  welfare  of  their 
fellow-men,  and  especially  to  that  of  our  own  community 
and  Commonwealth.  As  we  recall  the  names  of  its  mem- 
bers who  in  times  past,  amidst  trials  and  obstacles  of  all 
sorts,  have  done  their  duty,  while  doing  the  State  some 
service,  may  we  emulate  their  example,  never  failing  to 
heed  the  voice  of  God  and  our  country  when  it  calls  upon 
us  for  work  and  self-sacrifice. 


ilia 


PHOTOMOUNT 
PAMPHLET  BINDER 

Manufacluftd  hv 

SAYLORD  BROS.  Inc. 

Syracut*,  N.  Y. 

Stockton,  Calif. 


BX5920  .P5C5  S8 

The  historical  relations  of  Christ 

Princeton  Theological  Seminary-Speer  Library 


1    1012  00050  7196 


